Infected
by Robin Sparrow
Summary: Central City is plagued by a new and deadly disease which takes a toll on both the victims' bodies and their alchemical abilities. But is this outbreak a random twist of fate, or the result of a more... human design? Complete!
1. Quarantine

So yeah. Back in December, I signed up for the annual Risembool Rangers Secret Santa on deviantArt, and the Ranger I ended up getting had requested a _Fullmetal Alchemist_ and _Trauma Center_ crossover. Sooo... I wrote one.

The FMA bits are based on the manga/newer series - and if you haven't finished one or the other, may contain some spoilers. The Trauma Center bits are based solely on information contained in the first game, _Under the Knife, _because I know absolutely nothing about the sequels, and am in fact a newbie when it comes to the first game as well.

This fic takes place sometime during the beginning half of the story in terms of _FMA_, after the Elric boys have met Dr. Marcoh but probably before they've met Olivier Armstrong. (No, I don't know exactly when.) In terms of _Trauma Center_, this is taking place between the first and second games.

Also, for the purposes of this story, this is a slightly AU where Amestris and the homeland of the _Trauma Center_ gang (America, I know) exist in the same world, and always have. This is because I was too lazy to come up with an explanation as to how the two worlds would cross, and also too lazy to rewrite one or the other to exist within each other's canon worlds (if that makes sense).

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER I: Quarantine<strong>

"Ugh… my shoes feel like they're filled with lead."

"Easy for you to say – _my_ feet are made of metal!"

Edward cast his brother a sideways glance. "Yeah, but you can't get tired, Al."

Al's hackles went up a little at that. They had been walking a long time in order to get to Central City, and both of their tempers had become rather – well, _short_. "Oh yeah, _lucky_ me! Just because I can't get tired doesn't mean I'm not tired of walking, Brother! If you hadn't beat those guys up back at the last town, we could have asked them for a ride! They said they were heading past Central anyway, remember?"

"Those guys asked for it! That old geezer called me short!" Ed fumed.

Al threw up his arms in disgust. "He didn't call you short, he called you SPORT! They tried to tell you that themselves, but you were too busy having a fit to listen to them!"

"Oh… really?" The flames in Ed's eyes slowly gave way to blank confusion. "But I could've sworn he said…"

"That's 'cause you always think that. Trust me Ed, he said sport. But no, thanks to you, we had to _walk_ all the way here."

There was something oddly, awkwardly endearing about a giant suit of armor kicking at stones and pouting the way Al was doing just then, and it made Ed forget whatever snappy retort he had been about to say. Instead, he smiled to himself, and did his best to sound contrite. "Sorry, Al. Once we get to Central…"

Ed and Al stopped dead in their tracks. They had reached the top of the last hill that had been hiding the city from their view, and the sight that they found before them was not what they had been expecting.

The road was closed. The gates which had always been wide open to traffic before were locked tight, and soldiers stood on guard just inside, their faces covered with white surgical masks. Although these hid their expressions, it was clear from the way they were gesturing at each other and their raised voices, which the boys could just barely make out.

Intent on their discussion, the guards had not noticed the brothers yet; motioning to Al for silence, Ed indicated that he wanted to move closer and take refuge behind a large tree in order to better hear what the guards were saying. Al was loath to eavesdrop, but the masks and the closed gates concerned him more, and so he followed his brother's lead.

"I'm telling you, we should quit and get out of here, while we still can!" the guard on the left was saying.

"We can't do that!" snapped the other, who seemed to be doing his best to sound like the boss. But even Ed and Al could hear the longing in his voice; he wanted to leave, too. "Someone has to stand guard here and make sure no one gets in or out, so it doesn't spread!"

The first guard shook his head. "But it doesn't have to be us. We need to leave while we've still got our health, before we catch it too. I don't want to die!"

"I don't want to die either. But we can't just… leave! They said that foreign doctor was supposed to be here soon, they say he can help…"

"I don't believe a word of that crap. There's not a single doctor here that knows what's going on, why should he know any better than them?"

Ed and Al shared a wide-eyed look. This was serious. Something had gone very wrong in Central in a very short amount of time. The last time they had checked in with Roy Mustang over the phone, a little over a week ago, everything was business as usual. What had happened to the capital city?

"I don't know about you," the man continued, lowering his voice so that Ed and Al had to strain to hear, "but I'm leaving. Tonight. I can't do this anymore. Are you coming with me?"

The guard on the right, who seemed to be the younger of the two, looked down miserably. Although the boys could not see it, his hands were shaking. "I- I can't. My wife is inside. She's not sick yet, but she can't leave until the quarantine's lifted. And I can't leave her."

The first guard looked stricken. "That's… rough. I'm sorry. I didn't know. Well… good luck to you two. I hope you guys make it, I really do."

"Yeah… me too."

Ed, meanwhile, had gone quite pale, and was no longer listening. Al, noticing his reaction, whispered, "Brother? What is it?"

"Winry," Ed whispered back, his voice barely audible even though Al was right next to him. "Remember the last time we called her? She said there was some famous automail designer coming through the country on tour. She said she wanted to come to Central to see him…"

The exhibition was supposed to have been earlier that same week. They had completely forgotten about it.

"Oh, no," Al gasped. "Winry!"

Ed wasn't thinking. He rarely took the time to, with matters this close to his heart. He needed to act, and without stopping to think of a better plan, he strode out from behind the tree and went straight over to the guards. A second later, Alphonse stumbled after him, and the clinking and clanking of his armor body caused the two men to finally look over in surprise as the boys approached.

It was all Ed could do not to shout. "We need to get inside. Now."

"Eh…" The guards glanced at each other. "This city is under quarantine, by order of Fuhrer King Bradley. No one is allowed in or out until further notice. Haven't you heard the news?"

"I need to get inside!" Ed yelled, his patience already gone. In the back of his mind, he had already imagined a thousand different plagues ravaging the city, each one worse than the last, and every time the thought of Winry, sick, suffering – alone – made his stomach turn over. He had to find her, now. He had to know if she was all right. And if she wasn't… "Look, I'm a state alchemist, all right?" He flashed them his silver pocket-watch. "I'm a higher rank than you, right? So I'm ordering you: let us in!"

The younger guard looked nervous, but the one who had been so intent on leaving suddenly decided to take charge. Just because he wanted out didn't mean he wanted anyone else to get in and run the risk of infection. Especially not two kids. "Sorry, sir, but our orders come straight from the Fuhrer himself. No one is to be let out or let in, not even state alchemists."

"Is there someone inside you're worried about?" said the other, recognizing all too well the fear in Ed's golden eyes. "If you give us a name, we can have someone look up whether they've been checked into the hospital."

His companion shot him a dark look, which he tried to ignore. They both knew that the hospitals were the most chaotic places in the city, with more and more patients being admitted every day, and nowhere near enough staff, even when all the doctors and nurses had been called in. Not everyone who got sick made it to the hospital, and not everyone who made it to the hospital got checked in properly. To make matters worse, the disease itself worked fiendishly fast – if the person in question had been among the first wave of the infected, he or she was likely already dead.

Ed started to protest that it wasn't good enough, but Al stayed him with a hand on his shoulder and spoke up first. "Yes. Thank you, that's very kind of you. Our friend's name is Winry Rockbell. She's from Risembool; she was supposed to have come here to see an automail exhibition."

"Oh yeah, the exhibition," said the older guard. "I saw that. Pretty impressive. It's too bad those guys got stuck here for the quarantine. Absolutely the worst luck."

"We'll have someone look into it," the other soldier told them, smiling at them reassuringly. "It might take a while though, so you'll probably want to find somewhere to camp out for awhile. Come back in a few hours, and we'll let you know what we find out. All right?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you!" With that, Al dragged his brother away before he could cause any more of a scene.

"Al, we have to get inside," Ed said as soon as they were out of earshot of the guards. "We have to find Winry. She's alone in there somewhere, and she might be sick…"

"She might not be alone. She might've gone to stay with Mrs. Hughes and Elicia."

Their eyes met in horror. What had been meant as a comfort instead only added to their anxiety. Winry was not the only one within the walls of Central that was in danger; Maes Hughes' lovely wife and darling daughter were at risk too, as well as all of their friends in the Mustang gang.

"I want to get inside too, but you heard those guards. They won't let us in. And what about you, what if you get sick too? We don't even know what the disease is!" Al watched his brother pace agitatedly back and forth, and wished he could do something to work off his own nervous energy. Pacing wasn't quite as effective when you couldn't get tired, or even feel your own limbs.

Ed looked back over his shoulder at the wall surrounding the city. "Well, like I always say: if you can't find a door, or in this case if you can't get through the one you found, make your own. We'll just go farther down the wall and…"

"Brother, weren't you listening?" Al exclaimed, and moved to block Ed's path when he began to head back towards the city. "We don't know how the disease spreads. We don't even know what it is. For all we know, you could get sick just by being near someone who has it!"

"Then I'll just have to be careful, won't I?" Ed's eyes gleamed with a metallic resolve. "Those two guards can't help us. We have to get inside if we want to know how Winry and the others are doing. I can't just sit out here and wait for the quarantine to end."

"But I can go inside without getting sick!" Al knew trying to deter a determined Edward was like trying to move a boulder with a twig, but he had to try. "Let me go in and find them, and you stay out here and…"

"You're not a state alchemist, Al. There are a lot of places you can't go that I can, and you can't sneak in because… well, you sort of stand out." Ed folded his arms. "I'm not going in just to check on our friends. I need to know what happened here, and the only real answers we're gonna get are gonna be from the higher-ups. I need to talk to Colonel Mustang." Ed could only hope the Colonel hadn't fallen prey to whatever sickness it was that had befallen the capital. "I promise I'll be as careful as I can, Al. But I'm going in."

"Ed…" Al's voice cracked.

Ed patted his younger brother's arm as he walked past him. His automail hand clanked loudly against Al's armor. "Don't worry, Al. I don't plan on dying anytime soon. We've still got a philosopher's stone to find, remember?"

Although the city was heavily guarded on the inside to prevent panicking citizens from escaping, it was not generally expected that someone should want to sneak _into_ a plagued city; it wasn't long before Ed and Al had managed to get inside. While the guards (a different pair from before, stationed farther down the wall) were more than a little surprised to suddenly notice a young man and a tall suit of armor seemingly appear out of nowhere, they only warned the boys quite sternly not to try to get out, and handed them extra pairs of surgical masks, exclaiming at Ed and Al's carelessness in apparently having lost the ones they were issued. The Elric brothers played along, and promised they would keep away from the city limits, and after Ed had put on his mask (and Al had stashed his away), they continued on their way, making a beeline for the Hughes household.

They hadn't been quite sure what to expect once they got past the guards, but the chaos in the city was nearly overwhelming. Ambulance after ambulance rushed by, rushing patients to the hospital, while hearses drove in the opposite direction, transporting unfortunate victims of the disease to their final resting places. The streets were filled with masked citizens; some were in a rush, while others dragged their feet. It was easy to tell which were on their way to the hospital and which were on their way back home. Some simply sat on the sidewalk and wept.

Stalls manned by volunteers armed with masks and latex gloves were set up every few blocks, handing out more masks and gloves, along with water bottles and flyers listing the known symptoms of the disease and possible means of transference. Ed grabbed some gloves and one of the flyers as they passed by one of the stalls, and after a quick glance through it, he realized two things.

One, that things weren't as serious as he had thought; they were worse. Two, that one guard had been right: the doctors still had no idea what was going on. Ed made to throw the flyer away, but Al took it from him; after studying the list of symptoms, he stashed it away with the extra mask inside his armor, grateful for once that his metal face lacked the ability to show how frightened he was.

They knew Central well, and soon they arrived at their destination. Ed knocked loudly, calling out for Mrs. Hughes to answer, and at length the door was cracked open, and a tired-looking Gracia peered out at them cautiously. "Ed? Al? What are you doing here?"

"We wanted to make sure you and your daughter were all right, Mrs. Hughes," said Al. "Are you guys okay?"

The mask on her face made it difficult to tell if she had smiled at them, but her voice was as warm as ever. "Yes, thank goodness. So far we've managed not to get sick. But I thought you two were out of town?"

Ed nodded. "We were. We had to sneak in."

"What?" Gracia stared at them, aghast. "Why would you do something so reckless? Don't you realize…"

"Yeah, we do," Ed cut her off. "But Winry's here too, and we have to find her. Have you seen her? Is she staying with you?"

"Oh, that poor girl. No, I'm afraid I haven't seen her at all. I… hope she's all right. Are you _sure_ she's here?"

"She'd never miss an automail exhibition as big as that one. She's here." Ed clenched his fists. If she wasn't with Gracia and Elicia, chances were she was already in the hospital. "Thank you anyway, Mrs. Hughes. We've gotta go now."

"We're glad you're all right! Stay safe!" Al called back over his shoulder as they turned away and made for the hospital.

"You too! I'll let you know if I see her!"

Ed never looked back. He barely heard her answer. His mind was already at the hospital, imagining Winry lying in bed in agony, afflicted by the horrendous symptoms on the flyer. Or worse…

No. She had to be alive.

They were running now, though neither quite realized it, their minds being too preoccupied to notice or care. Unfortunately, they were also too preoccupied to notice the man coming around the corner until they had run straight into him, colliding at top speed and ending up in an agonized pile on the ground. "Dammit! Watch where you're going!" Ed snapped as he got up and brushed himself off.

"I could say the same for—say, are you not the Fullmetal Alchemist?"

Of course, the man was looking up at Alphonse when he said this. It didn't improve Ed's mood, but at the moment he had no time to waste kicking the man's ass. That would have to wait till later. "Not him – me, you idiot."

The man got up in a hurry, a huge smile spreading across his face (they couldn't see it beneath his mask, but his eyes lit up and crinkled at the corners in a telling way) as he thrust out his hand. "Oh, 'tis a pleasure to meet you, truly it is!"

Edward, surprised into a temporary halt by the man's abrupt change of attitude, did not offer his hand, but found the man shaking it regardless. "You have a strange accent," he observed, rather bluntly in Al's opinion.

"Ah – uh, do I?" The man made a painfully obvious effort to adopt a more Amestrian accent. "Well, uh, I spent some time abroad recently, and, uh…"

"Look, that's great and all, but we've got somewhere to be," said Ed, and tried to pull his hand away. But the man tightened his grip, and pulled Ed nearer to him, as if to impart a terribly important secret to him.

"The hospital, yes? Better get there soon… you don't have much time." Ed gasped as something sharp jabbed his left side, but by the time he managed to pull himself away, the damage was already done. Something metallic glinted in the man's hand before he palmed it, chuckling to himself. "I've done it, I got the Fullmetal Alchemist!" He sprinted past them, running down the street.

Ed stared after him, too shocked at first to move.

"Brother? Brother, what happened? What did he do?"

He swallowed hard. The most important thing to do first was to catch the guy; dealing with what he had done to Edward would have to wait until later. "Come on Al, we have to get him before he gets away. THIEF! THIEF!" Ed shouted, pointing at the man, and raced after him, with Al hot on his heels.

No one stepped up to help them catch the supposed thief – they were all too worried about contact with strangers who might be infected – but that didn't matter to Ed. The way they moved aside, keeping far away from the man and from them made him easier to chase, made it impossible for him to blend into the crowd as he had intended. Cursing, he pushed himself to run faster, counting on his stamina to keep him ahead long enough to simply outrun them.

If Ed had been on his own, this might have worked. But as Ed had pointed out earlier, Alphonse didn't tire like regular people did.

When Ed began to fall behind, he went for his last resort and clapped his hands together, intending to try and transmute a wall ahead of their quarry. But when his hands hit the pavement, only a weak blue light flickered beneath them, and instead of a wall, a low barricade barely better than a speed-bump rose up from the street.

Luckily, however, that was enough. The man, caught off-guard, tripped on the bump and face-planted painfully against the street.

"Good job, Ed!" Al congratulated him, and ran over to drag the man to his feet.

Ed didn't respond.

"Geh… your little friend over there… sure is a powerful alchemist…" the man panted, even as he struggled (vainly) to escape Al's (literally) iron grasp.

"Yeah…" Al wondered whether the man had seen alchemy before. Sure, Ed _was_ a great alchemist, but the transmutation he had just performed was elementary – most children could have pulled it off. And the man hadn't been looking back, so he couldn't have seen Ed clap his hands together, rather than drawing a circle.

Al looked back at his brother, who was uncharacteristically quiet as he approached them. He was panting too, and sweating, but something told Al it wasn't just the exercise that had Ed looking so out of sorts. Normally by now he'd be gloating, or threatening to beat the crap out of the guy for… whatever it was he had done.

"Hey, Ed, what did he take from you, anyway?"

Ed stared at the man for a moment; the expression on his face made him seem a thousand years old. His eyes burned – but he was trembling. "You bastard. What did you do to me?"

"Oh, I think you know," the man replied, just as he slipped out of his coat and tried to make a run for it. But Al was faster, and brought him up short by his shirt-collar. "Gack! What is this? Are you even _human_?" he complained as he tried to twist away from him.

Al tightened his grip briefly, and the man choked.

"He's more human than you by a long shot," Ed said in a quiet, threatening voice. The man became still. "This disease… it's not just some random sickness, is it? This was done to Central on purpose, wasn't it?"

Al inhaled sharply. "What? What do you mean?"

"Does it matter? You are wasting time here, boy. You had better get to the hospital – not that it will do much good."

Al shook him hard. "What are you talking about? Ed…?"

"Come on, Al. He's right, we're wasting time. We have to take him to the Colonel right away." He turned away, unable to look Al in the eyes. "And if he keeps struggling, knock him out."


	2. Guilt

Yes, chapter two now. For the record, Aerugo isn't something I pulled out of thin air - it's on the map in the manga and the newer anime, and all the information I present on it is based on what I read about it in the FMA Wiki.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing, except perhaps my own shameful laziness in not putting a disclaimer in the first chapter... and continuing to be so lazy as to not fix it now that I've noticed. Oh well. :P

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER II: Guilt<strong>

No matter what Al said or did, Ed refused to say another word until they reached Central Headquarters. With a quick flash of his watch, they were admitted inside, and soon found themselves standing in Roy Mustang's office.

"Fullmetal! What—"

"We'll explain later why we're here," Ed interrupted him. "What's important right now is this guy. I'm pretty sure he can give you all the answers you need to stop this epidemic before it destroys Central."

"Release me! I am innocent!" the man pleaded, as he had with every single person they'd passed on the way there.

Unlike the others who had simply tried to ignore him, Roy fixed him with a cold, cutting glare that quickly silenced him.

Riza Hawkeye, who stood just behind Roy as she always did, asked, "What does this man have to do with the epidemic?"

"This wasn't just some trick of fate, Lieutenant," Ed replied. "This outbreak was by design. And this man knows something about it, I'm sure of it."

"What?" Roy was on his feet in an instant. "How do you know?"

"Check his pockets," Ed told them. "Try up his sleeves first. Al, hold his arms tight so he doesn't try anything."

They did as he instructed, and Roy rolled up the man's left sleeve… and pulled out an empty syringe.

"What the hell is this?" Roy was furious.

The man, apparently resigned to his fate as a prisoner, answered, "It is your guilt, the guilt of a country which has caused nothing but pain for those around it. It's highly infectious, invariably fatal… and you deserve it, every single one of you."

"You—" Ed began, but his next words became a groan as he clutched at his chest.

"Brother? Brother, what's wrong?"

"Edward!" Hawkeye came forward to help him, but Ed jerked away and held up his arm like a shield.

"Don't… touch me! I need to go. Colonel… get this man to talk, ASAP." Groaning, he leaned over, pressing his other hand against the wall for support.

Alphonse's voice was shrill with dread. "Ed!"

Roy fingers tightened around the empty syringe. "You won't make it all the way to the hospital. Let Alphonse take you. We'll take care of this man."

Hawkeye trained her gun on the prisoner, preventing him from running off when Al released him and went to his brother. "Ed… no… don't tell me…"

"Don't worry, Al," Ed assured him, even as he was gritting his teeth in pain. "I told you, I don't plan on dying anytime soon. Just… help me get to the hospital, will ya?"

"I believe Death has a different agenda," said the stranger, as Al lifted Ed in his arms and carried him through the door.

"You should worry about your own life for the moment," Roy shot back, his black eyes murderous. "It might be shorter than you think."

The pain was unimaginable. He hadn't expected it to hit so quickly, so fiercely. One moment he had been standing in Mustang's office, still catching his breath from the earlier exertion, but otherwise feeling fine… the next, it was as if the Grim Reaper himself had clamped an iron fist around Edward's heart. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to move – it even hurt to be afraid, because the faster his heart beat, the more painful it became. The world around him blurred, and tilted, and jostled sickeningly with every heavy step Al took as he carried his brother to the hospital.

"It's… going to be fine, Al…" Ed managed, just before he blacked out.

Al sat in a chair beside his brother's bed, his hands trembling as he read the flyer with the list of symptoms over and over again, crying without being able to shed tears. This was what was happening to his brother. This was what he had tried to protect him from, and failed. This was what was killing Edward, and there was nothing Alphonse could do. From the looks of things, there was nothing _anyone_ could do.

_One: dizziness, weakness and/or disorientation._

_Two: excess perspiration, and/or a pallid complexion._

_Three: acute pain in a localized region, especially the chest area._

_Four: difficulty or complete inability to use alchemy (alchemists only)._

The fourth one was arguably the least damaging, but the most perplexing. Who had ever heard of a disease that made it impossible to use alchemy? Not only that; it repelled alchemy as well. Upon arriving at the hospital, Al had run into Dr. Marcoh, whose expertise (and red stone) had led him hither to lend what help he could to the other doctors. When Al asked if he could help his brother, Marcoh's response had been less than encouraging. He explained that, along with inhibiting the patients' ability to use alchemy, the disease also seemed to somehow be able to resist the doctors' transmutations as well – in other words, all forms of alchemical healing were currently off the table, and Marcoh's stone was about as useful as a regular rock.

"But how – how is that possible?" Al had exclaimed. They had been sitting together in the waiting room while another doctor examined Ed. Marcoh was on a brief break; he looked like he had needed it.

"We're not sure yet." The older alchemist passed a hand over his tired, disfigured face. "We still haven't determined how it was introduced to the population, so it's difficult…"

"It was an injection," Al said shortly. "A fluid injection. There was a man on the street – that's how Edward—"

"Oh… Alphonse, I'm sorry about your brother. We'll do everything we can to help him." Marcoh's reaction had been no more comforting than that of the unfamiliar doctor who was taking care of Edward. Both men seemed to be preparing their condolences even while they pretended to have hope. "An injection, huh? I'm guessing Colonel Mustang is grilling this man as we speak?"

Al nodded.

"Then the two of you have done us a great service. This information will help a lot, I know it will. Thank you, Alphonse. And thank your brother when he wakes up, too."

That conversation had been over half an hour ago. Al was still waiting for Edward to open his eyes.

When the man who was not from Amestris awoke, he saw that he was no longer in the Colonel's office, nor was he in another room in Central Headquarters, nor – as he feared – was he in a prison cell. Rather, he appeared to have been taken, for reasons yet unknown, to some sort of warehouse. He saw that, aside from himself, the only people present included the Colonel and his second-in-command – the woman lieutenant – and a tall, grey-haired man in military uniform apparently standing guard beside the warehouse door.

"I… don't suppose this is regular protocol…" the man mumbled, his mind still fuzzy from unconsciousness; he gathered from the throbbing in the back of his head that he had been knocked out.

What had happened just prior – what the man had missed after Hawkeye had forcibly rendered him more cooperative with a blow to the head – was, indeed, a far cry from regular protocol. Roy knew if he brought the man in for proper questioning, it would be days and days before the right paperwork and procedures had been carried out, and longer still before the trial proper. But he had neither the patience nor the time for such trivialities, and so, despite the risk of losing his position should he be discovered, Roy had opted for a more private, but swifter, path to enlightenment. Justice would be dealt later; for the moment, what the people of Central needed were answers.

He, Hawkeye, and Vato Falman had smuggled the man out of HQ by passing him off as another victim of the disease, and then brought him to the same warehouse to which they had once dragged Barry the Chopper, in order to interrogate the man in peace.

Roy did not explain all of this to the man. Instead, he skipped straight to the point. "Who are you? Where are you from? What is your purpose here in Central?"

The guy snorted, a wordless expression of derision aimed in Roy's general direction.

"His accent sounds like he may be from the country of Aerugo, sir," called Falman from the doorway.

"Aerugo?" Roy narrowed his eyes at the man. "You came all the way up here from the south?"

"But we haven't heard any reports of outbreaks in the southern cities," Hawkeye observed.

Falman chimed in a second time. "Maybe it was because of the automail exhibition. It did provide the perfect chance to infect a large amount of people at once."

"Hmm." Just when the man was beginning to wonder if this really was an interrogation or not, Roy fixed his attention back on the hostage. "But if the idea was just to infect mass numbers of people, his accomplices would have spread out to hit other cities, not just Central. So, I'll ask you again: who are you, and what are you doing in Central?"

Edward was dreaming. He dreamt that he was a boy again, a child, whole and innocent and carefree. He was playing with his younger brother, who was flesh and blood rather than metal, and the neighbors' golden-haired daughter out in the fields behind their houses. Everything was bright and sweet and soft, and smelled faintly of oak trees and daffodils.

But something was wrong. As they ran faster and faster, Ed started to have trouble catching his breath. He called out to Al and Winry to slow down, but they didn't seem to hear. His chest hurt – no, not his chest, his heart. It ached. Not like the time his mother got sick, or the funeral, or the time they tried to bring her back… this was different. Then, it felt like his heart was being ripped apart; now, it was as though it were being squeezed too tightly, like a soft peach in an automail fist.

He stumbled, cried out weakly as he fell to his knees, reaching out towards the others for help. They stopped finally, and looked back, but now their faces were covered by white surgical masks, and in their hands they held syringes filled with blood. They began to laugh, but their voices sounded wrong, distorted, and as they began to walk back towards him, he realized he couldn't tell if they were laughing, or crying.

"Brother!"

Ed groaned. The dream had begun to melt away, leaving his mind sluggish and slightly foggy, but the pain was still there, though thankfully duller than before. "Al?"

Alphonse was on the edge of his seat, having stopped himself just short of seizing Ed's (non-metal) arm. For the first time since the day they had ruined their bodies, he was afraid of hurting Ed – afraid even the gentlest of touches might break him. Edward, who had always seemed so much stronger. Edward, the elder brother, who was supposed to be the one looking after Al, not the other way around. "Thank goodness you're awake. I was so worried!"

Ed winced. "Sorry, Al."

"Why couldn't you have just listened to me?" Al wasn't angry with Ed, but he heard bitterness creeping into his voice just the same. "You never listen. If you had just stayed outside—!"

"Yeah, but then we wouldn't've caught that guy." Ed was too out of it to bother fighting back. "Now that they've got him, they should be able to figure out a cure."

Before Al realized it, he was on his feet, his voice shrill again and just a few breaths short of hysteria. "But what if there isn't a cure?"

Ed frowned, and turned his face to look his brother in the eye. "What? What are you talking about?"

"What if there is no cure? And even if there is, what if they don't find it in time? Or what if it doesn't work?" Al's voice sounded distant in his own ears, as though someone else was talking through him. He wanted to silence it, but the words wouldn't stop coming out, and all the fears that had run round and round in his head while Ed was unconscious now tumbled out of him unchecked. "Remember Mom? When she got sick, we always asked when she was gonna get better. And she always told us soon. But last time she never got better. There was no cure… there never was. She never had a chance!"

"Al…" The pain in Ed's chest was getting worse again. "That was… different."

In truth, he was scared too. Al had a point; it was completely possible there was no cure or antidote, or at least that they would find it too late to save him. But he couldn't admit defeat, at least not in front of Al. Not yet.

"Yeah, it _was_ different – Mom got sick by chance. You got sick because of a stupid mistake!"

Ed turned his face away again, staring blindly up at the ceiling. "…Sorry, Al."

"Sorry? Stop apologizing, Ed! Sorry won't change anything… Sorry won't make you get better!"

Al ran from the room just as a nurse was walking in. She stared after Al for a moment in bewilderment before turning to her patient. "I heard shouting. Is everything… all right?"

Ed drew his arm across his eyes to hide his face, unable to give more than a single syllable in reply. "Yeah."


	3. Under the Knife

Like I said before, all information on Aerugo comes from the FMA Wiki. All the stuff concerning Derek's home country's attitude towards alchemy, etc., was entirely of my own invention... cause as we all know, in canon, these two countries don't even exist in the same world. XP

A quick note on Damiano (you'll see): I chose that name because (a) it sounded suitably evil (like Damian!), and (b) I saw online somewhere that it was an Italian name, which meant "to tame or subdue" - but also could be euphemism for "death." Geddit? XP Also, Prince Claudio was first mentioned in _Prince of the Dawn_, if I'm not mistaken.

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing. Blah.

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER III: Under the Knife<strong>

The man from Aerugo, whose name was Damiano, had lost much of his cockiness once Roy had given him a demonstration of his worthiness of the title of Flame Alchemist. Although Damiano had been loath to betray his own purpose (and no doubt feared retribution from his fellows), a few close calls and a pair of singed eyebrows (not to mention Riza Hawkeye's gun pointing very convincingly at his head) finally won out over his reluctance to speak.

He told them, haltingly, that he and his accomplices (there were six others) were all from Aerugo, and had come to Central armed with syringes filled with a disease they had synthesized together back in their home country. When pressed on the matter, he finally admitted that the disease itself had been unfamiliar to them; one of their number had come across some articles describing an epidemic of something known as GUILT (Gangliated Utrophin Immuno-Latency Toxin) a few months earlier in a nearby country. They had done some more digging, and at length found the name of a doctor who had been involved in the initial development of the disease. They managed to track him down, and after some choice threats, managed to blackmail him into helping them develop their own version of the disease, which they created to especially affect alchemists.

Alchemists – because State Alchemists, he revealed, were their main target. The more Damiano spoke, the more things fell into place. Aerugo had long been at war with Amestris, and had even lent a hand to the Ishvalans during the civil war; it was no secret that many of the citizens of the small kingdom to the south resented the larger country of Amestris, both for the damage the war had done and for its vastly superior army. State alchemists had always been their biggest advantage; the people of Aerugo were not exactly well-known for their alchemical prowess.

"So all this chaos, all this damage you've caused – it's all been for the sake of revenge?" Roy demanded.

Damiano sneered at him. "The damage _we've_ caused? Have you any idea how much damage your people have done to _my_ country?" The exact number of casualties, had he even known it, would have been massively insufficient to describe the amount of loss. There was a reason Amestris was at war with all of its neighbors, with no allies to back it up. Not that it seemed to need the help.

Damiano (with some convincing) went on to explain that they had formed a small resistance group formed with the sole purpose of rescuing Aerugo from Amestian occupation – permanently. Although the man insisted that they were doing what was best for their country, and that Prince Claudio would approve, it became clear that the Prince had not actually sanctioned their activities, in so many words. In fact, it was doubtful he knew of their existence at all. But this seemed trifling to Damiano; what mattered, he said, was the outcome. The ends justified the means.

"It's as I said before – you are all guilty, and you will all pay. And Aerugo will finally be free to live without the shadow of Amestris always looming over it."

"An eye for an eye, huh?" The Colonel's expression did not change, but a little of the violence seemed to go out of his voice, at least for a moment. Though it was hell admitting having anything in common with the man before him, Roy understood revenge too well.

This was not, however, the time for sympathy. Hawkeye stepped forward, her tone as cold as Roy's had been heated. "Is there a cure for GUILT or not?"

"The truly guilty cannot escape the past. It haunts them until it destroys them. There was an antidote we carried with us, in case we got infected… but there is none left. We have all taken it and destroyed the rest. Even if you could figure out how to create it yourselves, it would take too long." He smirked. "You are fighting a battle that is already lost."

When Marcoh motioned to Al to join him outside in the hall, he looked as though he'd aged another fifty years in the past three hours. Ed was asleep again, a small mercy after hours of battling with the disease. He was pale now, covered in sweat, and even what painkillers they could give him only seemed to take the edge off now. Rather than slipping into sleep, he had finally simply passed out from exertion. For the past twenty minutes, Al had done nothing but stare at his chest, making sure it kept moving up and down without fail. They hadn't spoken a word to one another since Al's earlier fit.

"Doctor Marcoh! Tell me you have good news!" Alphonse begged him as soon as the door was closed.

Marcoh stared at Ed through the glass window in the door, to avoid having to look the younger Elric brother in the eye. "Well, Colonel Mustang did make progress. We know now who the man is, and what he's doing here."

"What about the cure? Did they find out how to help my brother?"

Marcoh took a deep breath. "Not yet," he said carefully. "What we do know… is that it is a mixture of both disease and a specially designed alchemical blocker – that's why we can't perform alchemy on any of the patients."

"Alchemical blocker?"

"Well, you know all about alchemical enhancers, like the Philosopher's Stone. It stands to reason that there are substances which do the opposite, doesn't it?" When he put it that way, Al realized it did make sense. "Generally we don't find them much in Amestris, since alchemy is so widely accepted here. But I've read about them in other countries, where alchemy is… less popular. This one is particularly potent, it seems."

"Can you – well, is there a way to reverse it somehow?"

"Now that we know what to look for, we can probably synthesize something that will neutralize the effects so that we can perform alchemy again. But… it will take time. And the alchemical blocker is only half the problem. There's still the disease. They call it GUILT."

"GUILT?" Al didn't bother to ask what it meant. He didn't care. "Do you know how to stop it?"

Marcoh swallowed, and turned to face him reluctantly. "No. We're still not even sure what it is. The man who infected your brother will only give vague information on it, no matter what they do, and it's not enough to help us any."

If Al had been his old self, flesh and bone, tears would have been brimming in his eyes. Marcoh could hear it in his voice, and it hurt the old man that he couldn't give the boy the consolation he needed. "But— But my brother— Ed—"

"Al, don't – don't give up yet. There's still a chance. There's a doctor coming from another country, one we're _not_ at war with, and they say he's the best. They say he saved his entire country from an epidemic not that different from what's happening here. He might be able to help."

"When will he be here?"

Marcoh's brow furrowed with deep concern. "Soon, I hope." He couldn't bring himself to tell the boy that his brother might not make it through the night. The doctor wasn't expected until late the following day.

Whether out of sheer luck, or sheer will, or a bit of both (as was too often the case with this particular man), the doctor all of Amestris was counting on arrived just after midnight, along with a pretty blonde nurse, and a tall, dark-haired man with a sour expression – the head of the research department of their hospital, as he later explained. When the doctor introduced himself at the front desk, the head nurse gasped, and seized his hand as though he had offered her a lifeline.

"Oh, Doctor Stiles, thank goodness you're here! We need all the help we can get. They say you have experience with this sort of disease?"

Dr. Derek Stiles shared a wary glance with his nurse, who looked more than a little worried. "I hope not," he said sincerely. He had already beaten an epidemic once, but disease always seemed to progress one step ahead of medicine. One step forward, two steps back. He hoped, despite the evidence in what he had been told, that the disease ravaging Central City was not another two steps back.

"Doctor!" shouted a nurse from the open doorway of a nearby patients' room. "Doctor, we need to operate on this one! His vitals are dropping rapidly!"

Derek seized the arm of the doctor she had been calling to, before he could rush into the room. "I'll take this one – I need to see for myself what's going on here. Angie, you ready?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"You're the new guy," the Amestrian doctor realized. After a moment's hesitation, he nodded. "All right. Come on, I'll brief you while you prep for surgery. But hurry! This kid's already heading toward the final stages… and we haven't been able to save a single one yet."

"He really is just a kid." It was hard seeing a boy like that in so much pain, when he had clearly been through much already, if his automail arm and leg were anything to go by. Derek set his jaw. The symptoms the doctor had described sounded all too familiar, but he wasn't ready to accept the obvious just yet. Operating would settle things once and for all.

After administering another dose of analgesics, they put the boy under anesthesia, while a Dr. Marcoh escorted the patient's brother (who, for some reason Derek didn't understand, was wearing armor) from the room. Once everything was set up properly, it was time to make the cut.

"Scalpel."

He worked quickly and efficiently – and groaned when he saw what lay beneath the surface.

"Doctor…" Angie saw it too; her eyes were wide and just a little fearful.

Ed was dreaming again. Shortly before going under – or had he been under already? He was no longer sure where reality started and ended anymore, because everything was pain – he had glimpsed a man with brown hair and glasses… Tucker, had that been Shao Tucker? But Tucker was dead… his daughter was dead… they were all dead…

Was Edward dead, too? He hoped not – he had been trying so hard not to be, and it still hurt now, wherever he was. Death was supposed to be an end of agony, the end of everything. Nothingness. A fair trade – your life, in exchange for an end to a painful existence. Equivalent exchange.

He wasn't sure this made sense anymore. He wasn't sure if it mattered. He wasn't sure of anything except that, if he wasn't dead, he had to do his best to keep it that way…

Marcoh was at a loss. How did one comfort a boy who couldn't feel the warmth of a hug, who was crying but whose tears you could not dry? How do you tell a child everything is going to be all right, when his beloved elder brother may not live to see the next sunrise?

"If he… If he…" Al whispered. "I—I didn't know the doctor was already here. It happened so fast; one minute, we were talking, and the next he started clutching his test and moaning, and then…" He shook all over, his armor clanking softly as he cradled his head in his hands. "I didn't get to say anything to him, I didn't…"

He couldn't finish. He didn't want to say good-bye, didn't want there to be a need to say it. Edward couldn't die. But if he did, if hell really did exist and this was it, Al would never forgive himself for not being able to say a single word before his brother was taken from him. They had never said good-bye to their mother, no matter how many opportunities they had been given, and it haunted Alphonse still.

"He knows. He knows you care about him, Alphonse, and he knows that you're worried. Look, if there's anyone in this hospital that can pull through this, it's your brother. He's already lasted longer than most of the patients here, and now Doctor Stiles is here…"

"Do you really think he can save him?"

There was a moment's hesitation. In that moment, Alphonse felt his heart ache, like a phantom limb during a bad storm. "He's got a good shot, anyway."

"It's GUILT, all right. And it's the worst kind." Derek couldn't believe he was facing a crisis of this magnitude again, and so soon. It had barely been a few months since the outbreak of GUILT back home; he and Angie still felt like they were catching up on the sleep they'd lost during those days. "It's _savato_."

Victor Niguel stood on the other side of the patient from them, his expression, if it was possible, even more displeased than usual. "Well," he droned, "isn't this a pleasant surprise."

There were seven known strains of GUILT that Derek had faced in the past, and of all of them, savato had been the most difficult of all to battle, the most swift and the most likely to be fatal. It was practically death itself. Like a spider, it spun webs around the victim's heart, draining their energy and creating horrifying lacerations on the heart itself, especially once the patient was under the knife. The webs themselves contained some sort of chemical makeup which melted the very metal of a doctor's scalpel, making it even more difficult to make the necessary attack on the life-sapping strands, and the savato itself had a nasty habit of multiplying itself during operations. Use of a laser was required just to destroy its protective coating.

"It's a miracle this kid has lived this long," Derek remarked, ignoring a cold bead of sweat as it slid down from his temple to his jaw. "Angie, get the laser ready. Victor, go get us some extra scalpels – as many you can!"

"This doesn't look quite right," said Angie, frowning as she watched Derek work to quickly patch up the gashes which the savato had already made on the patient's heart. "It seems faster than last time, and the web looks thicker."

"Well, it's been awhile since we treated this," Derek replied distractedly.

"And it's a different color," she added, with a note of frustration. "It was blue – not red."

As Victor reentered the room with an armful of scalpels, he was followed closely by the Amestrian doctor who had left with the patient's brother earlier – he introduced himself to them quickly as Dr. Marcoh. "I don't imagine the original strain you operated on contained an alchemical blocker – perhaps that's why."

Derek glanced at him. "Alchemy…? What does alchemy have to do with medicine?"

Derek and the others had heard of alchemy back in their home country, but it had been such a distant and unheard-of phenomenon that most were inclined to believe it was an urban legend. State alchemists were famous throughout much of the world, but where Derek came from, the popular belief was that "alchemy" may have just been a euphemism for "chemically altered" – they suspected the Amestrian government of experimenting on these specially trained soldiers in order to make them stronger, more aggressive, more powerful. When he was later told that the boy he was operating on now was one of the most famous alchemists in the country, he could hardly believe his ears.

"Most of our alchemy is used for military purposes, it's true," Marcoh explained, "but there has been research into healing alchemy as well. Normally we would have used such methods to heal these patients, but this GUILT that has been injected into the state alchemists contains a blocking agent which makes it impossible for the patients to use alchemy, and likewise for the doctors to use alchemy on them. That may be the reason for the strange coloration."

"I see. So this was an attack on your country, not just a random outbreak," said Victor. In a way, it was a relief – it meant GUILT hadn't simply seeped out into the world on its own. It was still under control. "Any idea who's responsible? And Doctor Stiles, don't forget I'll be needing a sample of this savato for research."

Derek reached for the scalpel and quickly cut through an intersection of webbing, successfully removing two strands before the scalpel began to dissolve. Marcoh grimaced; the hospital had had to hire some of the automail specialists from the exhibition – the ones who had not been infected yet, anyway – to be on constant scalpel duty, transmuting extras round the clock for operations.

"A rebel faction from Aerugo," Marcoh told Victor as Derek went through another three scalpels just to cut the remaining webbing. "They were targeting alchemists. They said they were able to create their own version of GUILT by blackmailing a doctor who had been involved in the first outbreak in your country."

Angie went deathly pale, nearly dropping the laser as she handed it to Derek. "Do you… know the name of this doctor? Was it – Blackwell?"

"Focus on the operation!" Victor snapped. He and Derek both knew the significance of that doctor's name to her, but this was not the time for personal problems.

Marcoh shook his head. "We don't have a name yet."

"Dammit," Derek hissed as he worked at destroying the savato, which of course had multiplied on him once already. "Angie's right – this is a mutation, not the one we fought before. It's stronger, and I'm having trouble keeping up with it."

"Doctor," said Angie, "do you think…"

"Just do it," Victor interjected. "The sooner you take care of this kid, the sooner I can start synthesizing a vaccine."

"What about the ones who already have it?" Marcoh asked. "Were you able to find a cure for them last time, or is operating really the only option?"

Derek looked grim. "No cure. We had to operate. There were only a few isolated incidents of savato; we operated on them all. I won't be able to operate on everyone in this hospital before…"

He swallowed hard. It was not in Derek to admit defeat, but it didn't take a genius to realize there was no possible way he could save all of the patients in the hospital on his own. And judging by the way the savato was reacting now, it would take nothing less than his special Healing Touch to save the ones who were already infected.

Still, he had to do what he could. Taking a deep breath, he narrowed his focus, clearing his mind of everything around him, silencing his thoughts as he concentrated on one, simple shape: a star.

"What is he—" Marcoh's query ended in a note of surprise. Derek was rushing now against the clock to kill the savato before it killed the patient; Marcoh had seen what miracles adrenaline could do, but the man before him was moving so quickly, it was inhuman. Angie and Victor remained perfectly calm, as if nothing extraordinary was taking place, but Marcoh kept rubbing his eyes and gaping at the proceedings, trying without success to follow the man's movements with his eyes. Derek was simply too fast for him. "What—how?"

"Healing Touch," Victor explained briefly as Angie helped Derek switch back and forth between scalpel and laser, fighting with all his might against the savato as it tried desperately to evade his attacks. "It's a special ability he has; it's why he came here. Only one other doctor at our facility has it, and he was needed elsewhere. Derek, don't forget my sample!"

"I'm trying!" Derek narrowed his eyes. "I won't let this patient die." He had managed to get some of the savato, but what remained of it seemed to grow stronger as the situation grew more desperate, and he was still having too much trouble following it, even with the Healing Touch. He would have to go to the next level, or this boy was going to die.

He couldn't let that happen. He hastily drew another star in his mind's eye, and blocked out all outside distractions. The world around him seemed to come to a complete stop as he worked.

Marcoh began to think he had lost his mind; there was no way the scene before him could be real. _No one_ could possibly move that quickly.

"Doctor," said Angie, "it's attacking again!"

Although he did not hear her, Derek saw what she was talking about. New lacerations had begun to form on the patients' heart. Blood was leaking out everywhere – this boy's body would not be able to endure much more of this. It was now, or never. He gripped the scalpel tightly in his fist.

Even drugged and unconscious, Ed could still feel the cold, steely fingers of Death slowly squeezing tighter and tighter around his heart. The images in his dreams had long since ceased to make any sort of sense to him; they were little better than a poorly edited filmstrip containing snapshots of memories, some real, some imagined. His life, he realized, was literally flashing before his eyes.

It might have been amusing, in another context, but just now all he wanted to do was shut the projector off.


	4. A Fullmetal Heart

You know what? I think Victor's my favorite from the TC gang. Derek's great and all (a loveable loser who somehow manages to be the hero is always a welcome character in my book), and Angie's... Angie. But Victor just LOOKS like a jerk. And acts like one. But deep down... nah, he's kind of a jerk. But he's a good guy. ;) I think. Anyway, he's fun to write. I love the moment (you'll see) where Derek looks at him, waiting for him to say something, and he totally just doesn't care. Bwahaha. :3

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this (surprisingly) short fic... at least, it WOULD be short, were it not for the fact that it was supposed to be only one chapter when I started writing it... (NO, ED, I DID NOT CALL YOU SHORT! XD)

**Disclaimer**: Really? Who reads these? I own nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER IV: A Fullmetal Heart<strong>

Alphonse alternated agitatedly between pacing and sitting, getting up every few seconds to stomp back and forth across the waiting room tile floor, only to sit back down again a few moments later and repeat the process. He didn't even realize he was doing it – his mind was not in the waiting room, but in the operating room with Ed, imagining all sorts of worst-case scenarios.

"Sir," said a nurse nearby, "Sir, please, sit down. The operation will be over soon…"

"Sorry, sorry," Al mumbled, but he hadn't really heard her, and kept pacing.

The nurse sighed. She doubted she could force him to sit if she tried, and she knew there was nothing she could say that would calm him. She left him to go check on one of the patients in the other rooms.

Alphonse wished he could grow tired, so that at least a measure of stillness, if not serenity, could come to him. Any real human would be exhausted by now; if lucky, possibly even asleep. But Al could not sleep, and he could not sit still. There was nothing to distract him from the fear, and from the guilt. The last words he had exchanged with his brother had been in anger – only a mask for the terror he felt, but they had been nasty nonetheless, and he wished he could take them back. He should have said something, anything, to Ed before they had begun operating.

Now, there was nothing Al could do but wait. It was a helpless, hopeless feeling, and if something didn't change soon, it was going to drive him mad.

Then, just as he was about to sit again, the door of Ed's room swung open, and Dr. Marcoh stepped out into the hallway. Al was on his feet in a flash, and halfway across the room before Marcoh had taken two steps. "How is he? Is he all right?"

Marcoh blinked, looking dazed. "What? Oh—"

"Doctor Marcoh, _is my brother all right_?"

"Alphonse, he—"

"He's going to be all right," said Derek, his voice sounding slightly hoarse, as he stepped out to join them in the hall.

Angie and Victor appeared as well. The pretty blonde nurse seemed to smile at Al from behind her surgical mask, while Victor barely gave him a second glance before heading down the hall towards the research center of the hospital to examine the specimen Derek had obtained for him at the last minute.

"He…" Al was afraid to believe it, afraid that it was too good to be true. "He's… okay?"

"It's amazing that he was still alive by the time we got here," Angie said. "But – your brother, am I right? – he really has an amazing will to live. Doctor Stiles managed to remove all of the GUILT from his body, and Doctor Marcoh assures us that soon we should be able to restore his ability to use alchemy as well. Your brother is going to be just fine."

"Savato attacks the heart," Derek explained as Al continued to stare at them in shock. "That's the reason it takes effect so quickly. But your brother's heart is strong – one of the strongest I've ever seen. It was more his doing than mine that he pulled through in the end."

"Ed…" Al began to cry anew, but the tears he would have cried were tears of joy now. "Oh, thank you, Doctor Stiles! And you too Doctor Marcoh! And you, Angie!" He hugged them all (they tried not to groan – his hugs were rather tight) and then rushed past them into the room. "Ed! Ed! Are you awake? Brother!"

Ed was just barely beginning to regain consciousness. "Al…" he murmured. "Al, is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me Ed! Thank goodness you're all right!" Al just caught himself before tossing his arms around his recuperating brother. He knelt next to the bed, to be closer to eye-level with Ed, and clasped his hands tightly together. "I was so worried… I thought… I thought…"

"You idiot," Ed said, a small, wry smile slowly spreading across his lips. "I told you I wasn't gonna die yet, remember?"

"Yeah, but…"

"Listen to me, Al. I'm not gonna die on you. I won't leave you alone. I promised you I would get our bodies back, and I'm not going to break that promise. Got it?"

Al didn't need a human face for Ed to know that he was smiling. "Got it. Hey, Ed… uh, sorry, you know, about before…"

Ed shook his head. "Forget it, Al. I don't even remember most of what you said anyway." His smile faded. "Say, Al… did you ever find Winry, yet?"

Al jerked back in surprise. "Oh my gosh, Winry! I – I was so busy worrying about you, Ed, I couldn't think straight… I forgot to ask…"

Ed pushed himself up a little. "Al, get them to bring me a telephone. _Now_."

He held his breath, listening intently to every ring of the phone as he waited for someone to answer. "Come on, Granny…"

Finally, on the fourth ring, Pinako's familiar voice came crackling through the telephone lines. "Hello? Pinako Rockbell speaking…"

"Granny!"

"Oh, Edward, it's you – Ed, is something wrong?"

"Listen, when was the last time you saw Winry?"

There was an odd pause. "Winry?... What do you mean?"

"I know there was an automail exhibition not too long ago in Central City. Did Winry go?"

"Well, actually—"

Distantly, he thought he heard someone ask if Pinako was speaking to Edward. It was hard to tell, but it sounded like…

There was a scuffling sound on the phone as it was handed over to someone else. Then: "Edward? Is that really you?"

Her voice was rough and scratchy and didn't sound quite right, but there was still no mistaking it. Ed would have recognized it anywhere. "Winry?"

Al's eyes widened. "She's there? With Granny?"

"Yeah, who did you expect?" She coughed. "I just talked to you a week ago, didn't I? I'm surprised to hear back from you so soon. You didn't break your arm or your leg again, did you?" she added in a threatening tone.

"Wha— no, not yet. Winry, what are you doing at home?"

Another pause. "Ed… you know how weird that sounds, right? Why _wouldn't_ I be at home?" She coughed again. "Oh – wait, do you mean the exhibition? Oh, Ed, I wanted to go so badly, you have no idea…" Actually, he did. "But a couple days before I was going to leave, I caught a really bad cold. I would've gone anyway, but Granny made me stay in bed until I got better."

Ed blinked, letting the information sink in for a minute. Winry was safe. Winry was at home and – relatively – well. Winry was not in Central, had never gone to Central because… because…

He couldn't help it. He burst out laughing.

Al stared at him as though he had gone insane. "Uh… Brother?"

Winry's tone matched Al's attitude. "Ed? What the hell? What's so funny?"

It felt good to laugh, even if his chest still ached a little from the operation and the stitches. He laughed until he couldn't breathe, and then he was still grinning even as he caught his breath. "Nothing… Never mind, it's nothing. I'm just – glad you're all right."

"O…kay…" He could just imagine Winry shaking her head, confused. "Whatever. Yeah, I'm fine… why, is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong. I was just…"

He didn't say it, but she had grown accustomed to filling in his blanks. "Worried? About me? I'm fine, Ed." She coughed again, and paused to blow her nose loudly. "Did Granny tell you I was sick or something?"

"What? No. It's Central – there's sort of a problem here, and…"

"Wait – 'here'? You're IN CENTRAL?"

Ed cringed. He had been hoping that maybe somehow she hadn't heard about the crisis, but it seemed even rural Risembool had gotten wind of the news by now. "Yeah," he said in a small voice.

"What the hell are you doing in Central? How did you even get in? There's a quarantine and everything! Ed – Ed, are you okay? You didn't get sick, did you?"

"I'm fine, Winry," he answered evasively.

"You idiot. You're lucky, you could have been killed! I heard about the outbreak, they say no one's survived it yet."

"Well, I wouldn't say _no one_…"

"Is the quarantine still going on? Did they find a cure yet?"

"Sort of," he said, sharing a glance with Al, who could hear her high-pitched shouts even without putting his head next to the phone. "They know what it is now, and they're working on getting rid of it as soon as possible. I'm sure the quarantine won't last much longer now."

"Thank goodness." She sighed. "I heard mostly it was state alchemists who were getting sick. I knew you weren't there – you weren't _supposed_ to be there, anyway – when it happened, but I couldn't help being worried, anyway. You… sure you're okay?"

Ed nodded, then remembered she couldn't see him. "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine, I promise. Al's fine too."

"Well of course he is," she retorted. "_He_ can't get sick. What were you doing there, anyway?"

"We came to report back to the Colonel. And then when we heard about the quarantine, we decided to investigate." There was no way he was going to tell her that she was the real reason. "And we wanted to check on Mrs. Hughes and Elicia."

"Are they all right?"

"They're fine. So's the Colonel and his crew."

A nurse stuck her head in the room. "Sir, we'll be needing that phone again shortly."

"Gotta go," Ed said to Winry.

"Already? Listen, call back soon, all right?"

"Yeah."

"I mean it, Ed. You always say 'yeah,' and then it's practically a year before I hear from you again. And when I do, it's always because you've gotten yourself into trouble and need me to fix you up again. You don't need an excuse to call, y'know?"

He hesitated. "I… sure."

"And Ed?"

"Yeah, Winry?"

"… You and Al be careful, okay? Take care of yourselves."

"We will. Don't worry about us. You take care too, Winry. Uh…" For a moment, he felt as though there was something he wanted to say, something besides just good-bye… but he didn't know what it could be. "Bye," he said quickly, and hung up as soon as she said it back. He handed the phone to the nurse, and sank back down into his pillows.

"Thank goodness she's all right," Al sighed. "I feel awful that I didn't look for her, but when you got sick…"

"Don't worry about it, Al. Everything's okay now, that's what matters." He closed his eyes, and fell asleep just as the sun was beginning to rise.

Derek was right. He couldn't save all the patients in Central City's hospital, though he tried his hardest to just the same. He passed out more than once from using the Healing Touch too many times in a row, but he never gave up, and rarely rested more than a couple of hours at most before going back to work, no matter how many times Angie lectured him on taking care of himself. Only a handful of his operations were unsuccessful, but these failures were due more to the advanced ages of the patients or other health complications, rather than a shortcoming on Derek's part.

Meanwhile, Victor and Dr. Marcoh worked side-by-side researching the newly mutated savato and the alchemical blocker that had been mixed with it, and within a few days they had successfully developed both a vaccine and a compound which would nullify the effects of the blocking agent. With alchemy back in the equation, Derek was no longer fighting alone – alchemy allowed other doctors without the Healing Touch to operate more successfully, and in a couple of weeks, the GUILT was defeated, and a thoroughly exhausted Dr. Stiles announced that the quarantine on the city could finally be lifted. It was a somewhat bittersweet time, for while the end of GUILT was a huge relief, many lives had been lost before the battle ended, and more than one funeral now had to be planned and endured. Still, victory was victory, and the celebrations outnumbered the sorrows.

Al made sure to call Winry, so he and Ed could tell her the happy news, and reassure her once again that they and all their friends were fine.

As for Damiano, after his interrogation he was placed under formal (proper) arrest at Central Headquarters – only to be found dead in his cell the next day, having apparently committed suicide. This alone seemed suspect to Roy, since Damiano had not been exhibiting any suicidal tendencies or attitudes whatsoever before his death, and the Colonel's suspicions only grew when he received a report a few days later stating that, according to the news in Aerugo, six people had been found, murdered, not far from the Amestris-Aerugo border. They appeared to have been traveling, and it was believed that they had crossed the border shortly before being killed. The day after that, it was reported that an old warehouse in Aerugo, which had apparently been serving as some sort of underground research facility, had been burned to the ground; the damage was so extensive that it was unable to be determined exactly _what_ had been researched there, or what materials had been used.

Roy knew this was no coincidence; those people must have been Damiano's accomplices, and the warehouse their laboratory for synthesizing GUILT. But who had managed to murder all seven of them, and destroy the lab, without leaving a single trace of evidence?

Of course, if he had known the man called Father's plans, he would have realized that a deadly disease like savato would have had a disastrous impact on the fate which had been designated for Amestris. Such a large wrench in the works simply was not acceptable. A philosopher's stone, after all, is only as good as the number of sacrifices used to create it.

Once things had finally settled down again and Central had, for the most part, gone back to business as usual, it was time to go. Edward and Alphonse, accompanied by Marcoh and Roy, shook hands with Derek, Angie and Victor as they parted ways at the train station.

"Thanks again, Doc," Ed grinned at Derek.

Derek smiled back. "Thank _you_, Ed. After all, it was your operation that gave us the sample we needed to make the vaccine." He glanced at Victor, but if he had been expecting an echoing thank-you, he was doomed to be disappointed. Victor was doing his best impression of someone very important and very busy, who had better things to do than exchanging pleasantries at train stations.

"And thank you again for sharing your research, Doctor Niguel," Marcoh said to Victor. "For all our advances in alchemy, it seems we still have a lot to learn when it comes to scientific medicine. I'm starting to wonder if research into a combination of the two might help us to make even more progress in the future."

Victor made a noncommittal noise in his throat. "Perhaps. Of course, scientific research is the most important step – as we saw with this strain of GUILT, one can't always count on alchemy to save the day."

"Er – indeed."

"This group you mentioned before, Delphi…" Roy began.

"Don't worry, we'll send you all the information on them we have once we get back to Caduceus. Did you ever find out the name of the doctor that was involved with Delphi, the one that gave the team from Aerugo their information?" asked Derek, conscious of Angie listening intently beside him.

Roy nodded. The name he gave was, thankfully, an unknown – it was not, as Angie had feared, her father, Kenneth Blackwell.

"Well. Take care of yourselves, Edward, Alphonse. All of you." Angie did not smile at them with her mouth, but they saw it in her eyes that she was pleased – if a bit weary. They all were.

"You too, Angie!" Al replied cheerfully as they waved their farewells.

He and Ed exchanged quick good-byes with the Colonel and Marcoh, and before they knew it they were boarding their own train, heading south. Edward said that they were heading in that direction because he'd heard some rumors that sounded promising to look into – something that might help them with regaining their bodies – but Al never believed it for a second. Though Ed's automail seemed perfectly fine, it was probably about time for a regular tune-up, anyway. He smiled to himself as he watched Ed watching the landscape move outside the window, his golden eyes already looking ahead, waiting for the familiar sight of home on the horizon.


End file.
